Surprise Me
by Artemis Day
Summary: It's impossible to pull the wool over Loki's eyes, but that doesn't mean Jane can't try. For Omnicat.


_This must be what army generals feel like,'_ Jane thought as she stood before her assembled troops, hands clasped behind her back and spine pulled straight.

It was a quarter after one in the afternoon. They were supposed to meet at twelve-thirty. Everyone was late. Well actually, only Jane was late. Evading Loki in the morning was much easier when she wasn't half asleep after a long night pouring over new data. Add in Loki's partiality for waking her up with his tongue and/or fingers in interesting places, and it was truly a miracle that she'd managed to crawl out of bed at all.

In spite of the temptation to let Loki carry her off into blissful oblivion before breakfast, she had persevered and arrived at the rendezvous point in a more or less timely manner. The meeting couldn't start without her anyway, so if Tony or Steve or anyone else wanted to complain, they could take it up with someone who cared.

"Okay," Jane said, drawing the group to attention. "You all know why we're here, so let's get down to business."

Tony raised his hand. "I have a question."

"Save questions for later, Tony. We've talked about this."

"Yeah, but I still need to ask. Why am I helping you set up a surprise party for Loki?" He looked around at Steve, staring at the ceiling, and Natasha, filing her nails. "Why are any of us helping? He's Loki."

"Yes, the same Loki who helped drag half the universe out of a rock," Jane snapped. "The same Loki you let stay in your house for three months."

"That doesn't count. He was in the basement."

"My point is, Loki has worked hard to make amends for his action." It was almost completely true. Loki had taken his new role as a kinda sorta maybe borderline almost Avenger with pride. He did it all: from foiling terrorist plots to rescuing kittens from trees. Hell, most of them he hadn't put there in the first place. That was major progress. "Also he's my boyfriend so if I want to give him a surprise party, I will do it with or without your help."

"So why are we here again?"

"Tony, come on," Steve muttered. "We're supposed to be making peace."

"Says the guy who trains with him just so you can punch him in the face," Tony smirked. "You thought no one would catch on, but we did."

"My point is," Jane shouted over him, "I want today to be special, and I can't do it alone. Now, I can keep Loki distracted, but I need you guys to decorate and get the cake. Did you all read the email I sent you?"

"I skimmed it," said Natasha, still enthralled with her cuticles.

"I turned mine into a paper airplane," said Tony. "It didn't fly very far."

"I printed it out, but the Other Guy tried to eat it," Bruce shrugged. "Not sure where that came from."

Jane was rapidly getting a headache. "Okay, fine. Thor is picking up some food from New Asgard. He'll meet you guys in an hour and the party starts at three. Got it?"

No answer. Not even a murmur of forced enthusiasm. Maybe she should've gone with her original plan to buy a cheaper cake and wear it for him.

"I'm ready," a voice in her ear said. It didn't come from anyone she'd invited to this super secret meeting. No one had gotten up from their seats and when they looked over her shoulder, she knew she hadn't imagined it. "The question is, what am I ready for?"

A courtesan had been nice enough to teach Jane some Asgardian profanities once, so it was to her immense relief that Loki had vowed never to enter her mind without permission (and yes she did trust him to keep that promise).

"Honey!" Jane threw her arms around him, dangling an inch off the floor. "We were just… planning… something."

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Something."

"Yes."

"What kind of something?"

"Uh…" Jane glanced down. Her temples didn't ache, the telltale sign of mental invasion according to everything she'd read. "We're planning… a bake sale. For the children."

"Is that so?"

"Sure is. Right guys?"

A chorus of quiet and very unsure yeses. Some help they were.

"Which children?"

"All of them. Children need money for… things. And now I think these guys need to go get everything set up. For the bake sale."

Jane knew her phony grin could be shattered with one strike of a hammer, but she couldn't drop it. Not until everyone was on their feet and filing out of the room.

"You heard her," said Tony. "Time to go bake macaroons and put the icing on cupcakes. Anything for the children!"

"Thanks, guys!"

If luck was on Jane's side, they'd do as she asked and not leaving her high and dry. If that happened, she knew where they lived and how to bypass password protection. She shot Tony a text putting him in charge of overseeing preparations and keeping everyone else in check. That left her with the most dangerous task of all.

"So, while they're busy-"

"With the bake sale."

"Yes. With the bake sale." Jane showed off all her teeth. "Why don't we go see a movie?"

"What movie?"

"The new one." Jane stepped in front of him as his eyes strayed to the door her birthday army had just exited through. "The one I've been wanting to see."

"Forgive me, I've forgotten the title. Can you remind me?" Loki smiled. It was his 'I know you're full of shit but I'm going to pretend I don't know because it's funnier that way' smile.

"You know, that movie. The one that's been on TV." Jane was floundering and she knew it. This was going nowhere fast, so she grabbed his arm and dragged him out back. "Come on, let's hurry before we miss it."

The nearest movie theater was five minutes away by car and one second by magic. Jane insisted on the former. When Loki asked, it was because she enjoyed the scenic route. Nothing like watching trees and old abandoned gas stations and trees go by.

There was only one movie starting when they arrived at the theater. The next one wouldn't be for an hour.

"Two for Wreck it Ralph 2, please." Jane hid her eyes in her hair and paid in exact cash.

Loki studied the brightly colored movie poster with dubious curiosity. "I didn't realize you had an affinity for children's entertainment."

"There's a kid in all of us," Jane replied. "Now come on or we'll miss the previews."

The movie turned out to be decent. Not really Jane's style (she missed 2-D animation) but the Disney Princess sequence was good and the whole thing killed ninety minutes. When it was over, Jane excused herself to the bathroom and hid in the farthest stall with her phone.

 _'Status report. Is everything ready?'_ she typed.

 _'Twenty more minutes,'_ Tony responded.

 _'What do you mean twenty minutes? What's taking so long?'_

 _'Had a minor cake issue. No big deal. Twenty minutes.'_

 _'How minor?'_

 _'I can probably clean the icing off the walls. One-third of an hour.'_

 _'It better be or I'm deleting everything off your personal laptop. Including the vacation photos. Got it?'_

 _'Wow. Someone's moody today.'_

Jane left the bathroom grumbling to herself. She should've put Steve. At least when he snarked, he did it privately.

Loki met her in the lobby and they walked out arm in arm. "I hope you enjoyed yourself. Shall we return to the base?"

"Yes," Jane muttered thoughtlessly. "I mean no! I mean… I'm hungry. Let's get some ice cream."

There was a locally owned shop across the street which was infamous in this town. Twenty years in operation, and in that time it had received exactly one five star review. It was for a waitress with a nice ass. Every other comment contained the same key phrases. 'Dirty tables', 'rude staff', 'drab decor', 'a thoroughly unpleasant experience all around'.

How bad could it possibly be?

"Let's see…" Jane shifted on her feet, her heels caught in a sticky soda stain. "Do I want cookies and cream, or mango, or rum raisin… no, definitely not that one."

The employee on staff had his phone grafted to his hand and misheard Jane's eventual order of plain vanilla twice. He got it right only to short her ten cents at the register. By then, Jane just wanted to find a seat and pray there was no dirt or boogers hidden in her cone. Loki had chosen not to place an order.

"Isn't this nice?" Jane nibbled on her ice cream bit by bit, time slowly ticking away until ten minutes had passed. "We should get out like this more often. Just you and me."

"I did take you for a walk by the lake last week," Lok said, which was admittedly fair as the lake in question was on Alfheim.

"Yeah but… we should still do it more."

Jane licked a stray bit of ice cream off her hand, though at this point it had completely melted all over her fingers. She went through half the napkin dispenser cleaning up the mess and vowed to add another damning review to the shop's page.

"I hope that was enough of a distraction for you." Loki held the door for her like the perfect gentlemen he wasn't. "Let's return to the base, shall we?"

"We could." Jane checked her phone. Eight more minutes. "Or I could run a couple of errands while we're in town."

"What errands do you have to run?" Loki crossed his arms. "You have people for that last I checked."

"Don't make me sound like some lazy rich person. I'm still the same broke, starving scientist I always was."

"No, you're not."

Jane glared at him. "Okay whatever, smartass. We still have things to do."

"I'm all ears, dearest."

Sometimes she hated when he called her that. Actually, she always did. He never used it unless he was screwing with her. Usually, she was just 'Jane' or, if he was feeling passionate, 'my Jane'. He would never know how much she loved that last one.

Looking around, there was very little of note on this block. Aside from the theater and the ice cream shop, there was a closed down shoe store, a gas station, and a bank. A few cars lined the streets, including a black sedan with covered license plates which parked in front of the shoe store. Three men got out and walked towards the bank. They wore long coats with bulging pockets; their heads were bowed.

"I have to get some cash out of the ATM." Jane raced after the men before she could talk herself out of it. "Be right back!"

"This is not your bank," Loki said. She was already climbing the steps and the only way he could stop her now was to appear in front of her and throw her over his shoulder.

Jane waited in line behind one of the jacket men. He fingered his pocket and glanced at his buddy by the reception desk. The third guy hovered by the door until his partners nodded. Out came the gun.

"All right, nobody move!" He fired once at the ceiling. Plaster hit the floor as screams erupted. "I don't want to see anyone trying to be a hero."

The man in front of Jane whirled around and grabbed her. She was small and skinny and seemingly helpless. The perfect hostage. "Give us all the money or this bitch gets it!"

"Oh no! I'm in danger!" Her captor jammed the barrel into her temple. "I'm in so much trouble right now. I need help."

"Damn right you're in trouble," the man snapped. "I'm about to turn your head into paste if you don't shut your mouth."

"Won't someone please save little old me?"

Loki was sure taking his sweet time. She'd been threatened with death twice more by the time he saw fit to make his entrance. To his credit, he left the showmanship at home. No stepping out of a cloud to a chorus of chanting or rigging Tony's suits to fire a twenty-one gun salute. Instead, he pushed open the bolted front door, whistling as he blasted two of the robbers across the room. The man holding Jane was half a head shorter than him in addition to being a squishy human. His grip had slackened and Jane's nose scrunched up at a sudden rancid odor.

"Please remove your hands from her person, lower your weapon, and turn yourselves over to the authorities immediately," said Loki.

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

The man scurried out with his friends, right into the waiting arms of four police officers. How they got there so fast didn't matter. The important thing was, as a witness, Jane would have to stick around and give her statement.

"My hero!" Jane clung to Loki like one of the Avengers' teenage fangirls. "You were so brave and strong. Wasn't he so brave, everyone?"

The shellshocked employees and patrons managed a few seconds of applause before the police stormed the building.

Jane spoke at length with the officers about her harrowing ordeal. It was well past eight minutes by the time she was cleared to leave. Loki took her by the arm and teleported them outside the lounge where their adventure had begun. He hadn't said a word since issuing his command to the bank robbers, but Jane didn't think anything of it until she got a look at his face. His lips had vanished into his mouth, his frown pronounced. His eyes were dark and not in the fun way.

"I hope that was enough excitement for one day." He removed his coat and hung it up in the closet. No magic or draping it over couches to annoy Tony. He really was mad.

"I had fun," Jane said like she had no idea how much trouble she was in.

"Hmm… now, I know you've become accustomed to life-threatening situations, but in all the time I've known you, I never would have guessed that you'd willingly throw yourself into the path of a gun."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jane backed up towards the door. There were whispers and footsteps on the other side.

"Of course, because was clearly a coincidence that you happened to enter the bank right before a robbery."

"As if I go around looking for criminals to throw myself into the path of so you can rescue me." She grasped the knob. "What do you take me for?"

"I would say a liar, but that would make me a hypocrite."

"Well, if nothing else, you're honest about that."

"And you still haven't given me an answer."

"I'd love to, Loki. I really would, but first…" Jane threw the door open.

It was… nice inside. The banner was higher than she wanted, the tablecloths were pale yellow instead of goldenrod, and there was way too much icing on the cake. It had been applied in random spots as if to patch holes. The ten candles she requested were only one. Tony and Steve were arguing over a Thanos shaped pinata Jane definitely hadn't asked for when Natasha snapped her fingers in their faces.

Everyone stared. Tony dropped the pinata. Nobody moved until Jane grew sick of the tension.

"Surprise!" She leaped into Loki's arms and planted a wet kiss on his cheek. "Happy Birthday, Loki!"

"Oh, my darling!" Loki spun her once. "I can't believe you remembered! And you brought all our closest friends to help celebrate."

Natasha leaned closer to Steve. "We're his closest friends? God, now I feel bad."

"Anyway!" Tony reached blindly for the pinata and caught it by the head. "You can thank Jane and me for the theme of this little shindig. We have a cake shaped like the ol' grape man and a game I like to call Pin the Tail on the Titan. It's like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but instead of a tail, it's a knife. And instead of pinning it to him, you shove it up his ass."

A tear came to Loki's eye. "Stark, you are truly Midgard's second greatest mind."

"Coming from you, Rudolph, that means the world."

"Hey there, people!" Darcy waved from the DJ's booth, which was really just her iPhone connected to a speaker. "If you're done with the lovefest, let's get this party started!"

Darcy switched on her special party playlist, the one Jane inspected and approved of for usage on this momentous occasion. Blue (Da Ba Dee) was not on that list, but when the opening lines played, Jane could do little more than glare at her wayward friend. Loki either didn't get the joke or didn't care. He floated to the cake, conjuring a dagger and plunging the blade through Thanos's frosting coated face.

Thor arrived shortly after with their dinner. He gave a toast for his brother and poured mead over his head. Tony laughed and sipped water in the corner with Steve as Natasha took her turn at the pinata and knocked it to pieces with one swing. Loki pouted at not getting a turn until Tony dragged a spare out of the closet. Pin the Tail on the Titan ended with several holes in the wall, and at the end of the night, Loki received a new set of armor from Thor, ties from Steve and Natasha, and reindeer antlers from Tony.

He and Jane adjourned to their room at midnight, leaving Tony and his bots to oversee clean-up. Jane made a quick stop in the bathroom while Loki enjoyed his seventh piece of cake in bed. There'd be crumbs everywhere for days unless he was nice enough to clean up.

"Did you have fun?" Jane asked. She turned on the faucet to wash her hands and almost missed him.

"I did, thank you. It never occurred to me that ripping apart a paper mache replica of the mad titan would be so invigorating."

"Technically, that was Tony's idea. I just did the cake." Jane grinned. "I had a feeling you'd enjoy cutting it up."

"I enjoy devouring it even more."

Jane brushed her hair and crawled into bed with him. Her side was clean for now. She didn't expect it to last.

"So," she nestled into Loki's hard chest, reveling in his warmth, "when did you figure it out?"

"I've known from the start," he said casually. "You are terrible at keeping secrets, my love. Though I will say, if you wish to try, it's inadvisable to fall asleep at the computer with your party plans still on screen."

Jane swatted at his arm, earning a kiss for her troubles. She sighed. "I guess I should've known. It's impossible to take you by surprise."

"Don't feel bad. You are hardly the first to make that mistake, and the consequences of your slight will be far more pleasurable."

He pulled her on top of him, the two getting nicely reacquainted with each other's bodies. Jane ground down on him mindlessly, lost in the sensation of his hands in her jeans and his tongue swiping at her teeth. She only came to when he pinched her ass. Her fly was undone and she almost lost her pants climbing off him.

"Before we do that, I have to give you my present." She opened the top drawer of her dresser, digging all the way to the bottom.

Loki sat up, making his arousal more evident. "You were giving me a wonderful gift a moment ago."

"That doesn't count when we have sex all the time." Jane chose to ignore his evil little smile. "I wanted to get you something special. Something you'd never find anywhere else."

"Oh?"

"And it turns out that's harder than it sounds, especially for someone who's been around as long as you." She struck gold and pulled forth a long, thin package. "So I just found a stick and put it in this box."

She tossed it, knowing he'd catch it. He examined the pink and green balloon wrapping paper. There was no note attached. The contents rattled when he shook it.

"A stick," he said.

"Hope you like it." Jane sat on the bed, hand on his thigh.

He gave her a dubious look before peeling back the tape. There was an unmarked box underneath. He slipped the bottom flap open, allowing the promised stick to tumble out and fall on his lap.

Loki was familiar with a lot of earthly technology. Most of it was primitive at best to his eyes, but Jane had stopped holding that against him the day she overheard an Asgardian child call nanotech a baby's toy. Since then, she let it go when he scoffed at her and Tony's bridge design or laughed in Darcy's face when she came to work with the newest model phone. At this point, he was just being an ass for the sake of it. He knew how Midgard worked. He could use a microwave and write computer programs.

He knew exactly what two lines on the screen of a white stick meant.

Jane cuddled close to him as his shoulders fell limp. His jaw unhinged. He tried to speak, but only a faint hiss came out.

"Wha…"

She pressed her lips to his neck, making a trail to his ear. "Happy birthday, Dad."


End file.
